


tears on the coliseum doors, blood on the marble floors

by PaintMeViolent



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Character Swap
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-31
Updated: 2013-05-31
Packaged: 2017-12-13 12:41:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/824424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaintMeViolent/pseuds/PaintMeViolent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr switch lives growing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Childhood

It is 1934 and Erik Lensherr watches his parents make last-minute preparations for their holiday in Britain.

“A short holiday.” His mother looks at him with her deep clear blue eyes. ”I have no doubts you will like Britain.”

He is not a fool. His parents have never ever been in a hurry to go anywhere – whether it is a restaurant or another country. He is not deaf. He hears worried whispers. Whispers of dead Jews found on the roadsides of Berlin.

And Erik Lensherr, being a smart boy, only smiles at his mother, “Sure, Mommy.”

 

\|/

It is 1936 and Charles Xavier is hearing things - small, frightened whispers that can’t reach his ears and instead brush his mind. And then-

“We are moving to Poland, Charlie. Your father has got a job there.”

And Charles Xavier is so excited about the prospect of seeing new places that he doesn’t hear worried whispers in his mother’s mind.

 

\|/

It is 1935 and Erik Lensherr watches his father work on the layout of the newest fighter aircraft. And Erik is so bored that he starts playing with small metallic details.

“ _Mein Leibling_ , how do you do it?” asks his mother coming in the hangar and sitting down by little Erik.

“I will metal to bend to me, _Mama_ , and it does.” Erik smiles proudly. And there is a good reason to be proud – what other five-year-old boy can control metal?

“Can I see it once more, _Sonny_?” His mother is gentle, understanding. She truly wants to see it, decides Erik and without batting an eyelash, he commands all the tables in the room to rise in the air and dance a waltz of metal.

 

\|/

It is 1937 and Charles Xavier is tugging on his mother’s skirt. He wants to play but there is no one to play with in the entire neighborhood. He just doesn’t understand them. He can’t understand their whispers and that frightens him.

He doesn’t want to be in Poland. And every time he asks to go away, to leave this country behind and never return (because there is something dark looming over them and they won’t be able to hide, it will find them anywhere they go and reach its ugly claws towards them… there will be no salvation).

His mother smiles and gently picks him up, tells him that his father has a job here that can’t be abandoned.

And Charles goes to his room…

It’s _cold_. It’s _dark_. He is _alone_.

 

\|/

It is 1939 and the voice of Neville Chamberlain is drowning in the background of his father’s study. The days of stress and strain are ahead. Britain is at war with Germany. And people are asking God to protect them. But Erik Lensherr doesn’t fear, because-

‘Oh, they are so _far_ away and _nothing_ will happen to our home.’

 

\|/

It is 1939 and Charles Xavier watches the world around him fall on its knees in front of the soldiers caring a flag with a red background, a white disk, and a black swastika in the middle.

It is Chaos. Charles doesn’t hear whispers; there are only screams – desperate and painful. They fill his head, his memories, and his soul.

They break into their house – mother, clutching her son and father, trying to protect them (shot in seconds) and screams. Screams. They fill everything. And now the silent house will hold memories of blood and terror, and a silent echo of the agonizing cry of a seven-year-old whose fate had been decided with one thundering shot.

 

\|/

It is August, 1940 and Erik Lensherr looks at his father with numb eyes. He understands, but at the same time he wants to howl in anger that has such a bitter taste. The only thing that stops him is that his father is right. They need to leave. And his father has duty. He can’t go with them.

When they board the small plane that will take them to safety that is America, Erik is reaching towards every small detail in the plane, probing it, feeling it, living with it if only for a second. And it makes him wonder if he can stop the awful throbbing in his heart (Heart has blood and blood has metal and Erik has control over metal, so it wouldn’t be _that_ hard.), but at the same time, it is the only thing keeping him _human_. He would miss it.

 

\|/

It is _Konzentrationslager Auschwitz-Birkenau_. And that says everything there is to know, but little Charles Xavier isn't aware of it, not yet.

He doesn’t know how long his mother and he had been thrown from one camp to another, from one truck to a bigger one. All he knows these days that blood smells of rusty metal and that even a small offense results into a forehead with a bullet.

And then it is his mother being taken away. She screams and tries to break free, tries to reach him, but she is so fragile, so tired, so weak, that after so long little Charles remembers that he can _make_ them.

‘ _Freisetzung_!’ He watches as their hands fall from his beloved mother and then there is only mud on his lips.

 

\|/

It is metal. Firm and strong, but soft and pliant under his will. And then one rainy morning Erik finds more than metal. It is so beautiful that he can’t take his eyes away. He sees small blue dots everywhere – they are like tiny glowworms. And Erik shapes them like metal. He wraps them around himself and nothing can touch him.

School becomes bearable and as he plays with these dots, he learns to tune them out, to use them as means to give himself strength, and when he accidently produces a bolt of electricity that shatters the window in his History class, he finally understands what means are in his hands.

 

\|/

He listens to the man that is sitting opposite him talk about genetics and evolution and Charles doesn’t understand, because this man’s mind is silent – there are no whispers, no pictures, no feeling of his mind – just a big hollow spot.

And then he is asked to talk, to order something, to make the guard who is standing near the door do something, anything. But Charles can’t concentrate. He hears whispers, sees pictures, but he can’t order the man to go away. He tries to gain access to the mind, he tries to reach it with his own mind and it doesn’t work.

“Maybe you need a little bit of motivation?”

Herr Doktor tsks and motions to the guard at the door. And then there is his mother – grey and ill-looking. She is being held by two guards, because her own legs won’t allow her to stand. She is weary and she has never before looked so broken. And oh, God, it is all _his_ fault.

“Mother!” he exclaims. And then realization downs upon him and he stares at Herr Doktor who is holding a revolver aimed at his mother.

“Wie machen das so: Ich zahle bis drei. Und du machst ihre etwas tun. Order sie stribt.”

Charles’s eyes widen and he looks at one of the guards, desperately wishing them to move, to make them do something so that his mother is free from their grasp.

“Eins.”

He is shaking from fear. What is he won’t be successful? What will happen to his mother?

“Zwei.”

His body is tense, like an arrow on the sting of a bow. And he is trying and trying. Again and again. But God, why don’t they listen?

“Drei.”

But trying is _not_ enough.

His mother falls. And he screams. And guards die.

Herr Doktor laughs.

 

\|/

He doesn’t like sleeping in his room. It is too big and there is far too little metal. Instead he prefers his room where metal is everywhere. It hums and keeps him calm and he falls asleep much faster.

His mother has already gone to bed. And he is heading to kitchen to find something to eat before going to bed. He could have asked Molly, one of the maids, to bring him a sandwich, but it’s a late hour and he hates asking for something he can do himself – it makes him feel disabled or really old. Thank you very much, but he is a normal ten-year old kid.

But a sudden knocking on the parade door breaks him out of his musings and Erik sprints to the door in hopes that maybe his father has finally come to visit them. He tears the door open and comes face to face with a blue child in a basket.

Erik blinks and then a smile appears on his face.

That Christmas is the happiest Christmas the Lensherr family has had in a long time.

 

\|/

When they adjust metal to his forehead to see how wide his range is, it is electroshock they motivate him with. And his undying rage makes it so much easier.

Herr Doktor laughs and laughs and laughs. And Charles wants nothing more than to shut him up and choke him with his laugher. And then laugh himself as he watches Herr Doktor dissolve into nothingness.

But for now he will burn and scream.

And then the Soviet Union comes and Herr Doktor flees and Charles swears revenge. And, oh, it will be _sweet_.


	2. Until We Meet

The cemetery is grey and muddy. Eric hates it. Or maybe he is just too tired.

The war has ended. And his father is dead.

His mother is destroying herself.

Raven has not been told. She did not know the man at all. Or maybe she is just too young to understand what death and grief mean. He does not say a word.

For him life goes on. The word ‘father’ stopped meaning anything a long time ago. There are no feelings for the man who is half remembered and half dreamed up. For the silent engineer who loved his planes more than his life. It is sad, really.

His mother hates England now. Hates rains and clouds, hates their old house, hates the feeling of despair and death that is in the air. Raven thinks that she is losing her mind – the death of her husband had affected her too much for her to be able to move on.

His sister wants to go to France, his mother is more than willing to move there. Erik follows.

\|/

Charles does not dream. He forgot how to.

A country is being rebuilt; it arises from ashes like a Phoenix. And there is a place for him somewhere in this big world-

Only after he destroys Schmidt.

He may have forgotten how to dream, however, he learned quite well to see nightmares from his past.

The country is getting better, he does not. He doubts he ever will, there will always be numbers carved in his skin, and memories burnt in his mind. He will never forget. Ever.

\|/

Erik has mixed feelings about France. Raven is happy and his mother seems better (Eric knows that it is only a show, a hope that if she does pretend, she might actually recover from nightmares of empty caskets and the smell of human flesh burning in a crashed plane). He enjoys his University life, his studies. But oddly enough he misses America. And wants to go back.

And so one April morning he kisses his mother on the cheek, hugs Raven and boards the first plane to America. He does not regret a thing.

\|/

When he realizes that all his dreams of vengeance, of blood creeping into the pavement, ruining his suede shoes, will always remain just that, dreams, he is standing in front of Weber.

Weber, who had put the metallic band on his hand and pressed the red button. Weber, who wrote with vacant eyes how Charles writhed, and cried, and vomited, and could not utter one word, because the pain coursing through his body was agonizingly slow and so methodical that every tiny cell in Charles’s body felt the electrical jolts meant only for his head. Weber, who watched, licking his lips, how Charles lashed out and how the others dropped, dropped, dropped, and never stood up.

Weber, who is now writhing on the floor, begging and crying, and sobbing, who smells of fear, of wet pants, sharp and piercing, and who cannot utter one word without breaking it into undistinguishable sounds, helpless and final.

And Charles cannot bring the gun up and shoot the man in the face. It would feel hollow, this vengeance. Because he would not be killing the same man that hurt him, that tortured him, that experimented on him. No one can go back in time and murder that filth. But Charles can, because he is a very gifted man.

Instead, Charles brings up a hand to his temple.

\|/

Erik spends a lot of his college time partying. The parties can be going all night into the day and into the next night and then there is another one, another and another. And every one of them is vibrant and maddening, lovely and worthless.

\|/

They are dark memories, vibrant and alive. And all of them taste of iron and salt.  
Weber, Koch, Wolf, Schwarz, Lange, Krause, Fuchs, Muller, Keller. All of them different, and yet, they are still just snacks before the main dish of the meal. Schmidt.

Charles does not wonder if he can turn Schmidt’s memories upside down and watch as Herr Doktor crumbles from the top of the chain into ash. He knows he can. This time he can.

\|/

In the final year of college Erik gets his act together long enough to graduate with honors. He enjoys the year so much that the decision to go for Doctor’s degree is made even before he gets his diploma.

\|/

Charles follows a trail, from Poland to France to South Africa to England to Germany to Argentine to England. Sometimes he thinks that it is all he is good at, being a bloodhound.

\|/

Raven moves in with him, when Erik announces that he is transferring the family business. He doubts that she would be comfortable in his apartment that is crammed with blue prints, models and books, and asks her whether she wants her own.

He gets kicked out for the day and returns to find his books sitting on the bookshelves and all his blue prints tucked away. He manages to hold back long enough to get to his own room and trash it to the original look.

And he is not a child, thank you, Raven.

\|/

Living with Erik is a nice turn of events.

Mother spoiled her non-stop, focused her whole attention on the only child she had left, making Raven feel loved, accepted for being a mutant ( _freaky blue girl_ ). But every child has to grow up and Mother let her go with a promise to visit the two of them.

Erik, on the other hand, looks at her blue form, smiles and continues to persuade her into joining yet another crazy idea, which will only end with him huffing like a baby and rolling his eyes so much that Raven cannot help but wonder why they do not jump out of his eye sockets.

When one morning Raven wakes up to Erik waving a letter at her and smiling like a fox, she wants to punch him.

Accepted.

\|/

The bar is dimly lit and the atmosphere is friendly, loud and warm. Excellent beer and the gentle buzz of thoughts, all incoherent and vague, make this place the perfect one for a pleasant evening.

He is drinking up his second beer, when suddenly there is a desperate scream from someone and he is seeing figures, a diamond woman, a red man, and a man in a dark blue suit, a man, who didn’t age one bit since the last time Charles saw him, running for his life, never turning back.

Her name is Moira MacTaggert, age 30. CIA agent. Searching for a genetic mutations expert.

“Agent MacTaggert, I heard you were looking for me.”

\|/

Raven is talking animatedly, throwing her arms around, jumping impatiently when he cannot stop laughing, her blonde curls look like vicious little snakes that would bite him to death if he is slow to catch up what exactly Raven is gushing about now. They are returning from the charity concert organized by the freshmen, where Raven played one of the leading roles and that is when it happens.

His last memory is of Raven, whose eyes are suddenly frightened and whose mouth is opened, but Erik is suddenly deaf.

 _Snap_. Raven is lying on the ground, by someone’s boots.

 _Snap_. There is a man in front of him, waving a gun in his face and saying something, but he cannot hear anything.

 _Snap_. The gun is aimed at his little sister, whose hair is coated in red.

 _Snap_. The metallic pull of the gun, the shaking hand, the frightened green eyes, the silent scream, the hands, the face, the bloodthirst.

 _Snap_. _Snap_. _Snap_. _Snap_. The bullet. _Snap_. The coins pressed to the throat. The nails scratching the metal. And cold iron penetrating the flesh. **Snap**. **Snap**. **Snap**.

The hearing returns, the vision clears, the haze leaves his mind. The bloodthirstiness settles deep into his bones and never leaves.

\|/

Raven does not question what has happened that night. But somehow the next day Erik’s eyes are all wrong.

\|/

Sometimes he feels like a clockwork machine.

The alarm clock goes off at six. Get into shower with eyes closed, the water is 34 degrees. Check. Coffee. And a sandwich. Make a spare for Raven, if she’s staying over. Check. Pick one of the many black suits and a matching pair of black shoes. Check. White shirt. Check. Get into the car and drive to the Lehnsherr Industries, get ready for the day of never-ending directors’ meeting, conferences, cries of help from the resident researches, calls from the customers.

And at night he sits at one of the dinner tables in _Four Seasons_ , covered with the crisp white tablecloth, drinking _Crystal Louis Roederer_ and eating a six course meal, the finest royal mussels and desserts that melt in your mouth. They talk about their wives and mistresses, children and dogs, about the Formula One champions, about the Cold War, about charity dinners their wives throw. Erik wants to howl.

Only when he is alone in the haven that is his office, working on the newest aircraft, or when he is overlooking the construction of the brand-new ship, can he truly relax.

And then everything flips upside down and Erik finds himself roaming the streets, never quite finding solace, because people are moving, their blood is coursing through their bodies, and blood has iron, and iron is calling for him, even in his sleep it is beckoning him closer.

On the eleventh of May he gets roaring drunk, boards _Genosha_ and sails to the Miami coast.

**Author's Note:**

> The title was inspired by Kanye West and Jay-Z's _Church in the Wild_ lyrics.


End file.
